Almost two months ago, I was asked by my friend Tim Watkins of Renegade to help him finish a video project.
It was rather interesting how this transpired. My wife and I were at the Shrine of St. Anthony in Ellicott City, MD for Noon Mass on a Thursday afternoon in March. While preparing to celebrate the sacred mysteries, I see my friend Tim come in and take a seat. After a few minutes he caught my eye and with a look of some surprise, acknowledged me. After Mass we had the opportunity to chat. “So what brings you to The Shrine?” I asked. “I have a meeting in the area and when I travel, I like to find someplace to go to daily Mass. I looked up the area and found this place. It’s my first time here.” “Oh well, we’re ‘regulars’ here — let us show you around.” I replied. We have been visiting with the good Franciscans at the Shrine for a number of years for Mass, teaching programs and to occasionally celebrate the sacrament of Reconciliation. We gave a brief tour and then were chatting by the bookstore. “I’m waiting to hear back from a prospective employer I’ve had three interviews with,” I told him since he knew I had been laid off last May. “Good. I’m on my way down to Florida for some meetings,” he replied and we said our goodbyes.
The following Monday, I got an email from the music administrator at our home parish which said:
Hi Doug,
See email below — someone wants to talk with you about the video.
Reading on, I see it was from Tim.
So I picked up the phone and called him. “How’d that job interview turn out?” he asked to which I responded “Still waiting to hear.” “Good,” he said. Then he continued “On my way to Florida, I kept wondering — with as crazy as my schedule has been — how I would finish a project that’s been pushed to the back burner for almost a year.
Tim told me that he had been out to Chicago last May to film the “March For Life” organized and sponsored by the “Americans For Life.” “Who could I get to produce this for me?” he asked himself, and then he said, “And your name kept popping into my thoughts.” I was speechless. “You told a good story with your St.Peter’s Church Fire video, you can do the same with this. Oh, and I had misplaced your contact info.” Well, that explained the email noted above.
We met later that week and I got the details of the ‘March’ in Chicago and talked about what he had in mind. Soon after, he set me up in an office and I went to work. I started looking at and cataloging the three hours of raw footage from the day and footage Tim had from the Washington, DC “March For Life” from Jan. 09.
I found some coverage for the event at the website for the “Americans For Life” and through some internet searches. For each of the speakers, I’d do an internet search to get some background information while listening to their talks, trying to find the highlights. There was a good deal of good information, a challenge to edit down to a short presentation.
There were over 1,000 supporters counted. They were peaceful, many smiling except when the statistics of the number of lives lost to Abortions over the years presented. When the sound system cut out for periods of time, impromptu singing and pro-life cheers and chants broke out.
But there were also some protesters present. One account had the protesters numbering 25. The protesters seemed angry, shouting — even shouting through the singing of the National Anthem as noted by the emcee.
This contrast between supporters and protesters — joyful vs. angry, singing vs. shouting, 1000+ vs. less than 30 — is what began to shape the story for me. I put together a rough edit, found some music for underscore and scheduled to meet with Tim to make sure I was not off track. After viewing, he had only a couple of suggested improvements and was so kind to offer his compliments on my work. The next step was to share the rough with the folks from Chicago for their approval. It only took a short while for the message to come back from the midwest — all was a ‘go’ for final editing.
So here I sit in the Renegade facility, having my first opportunity to work on a professional video editing platform (that is not without its own challenges), preparing the project to be polished by one of the pro editors. Hopefully, we’ll be able to share the final product in the near future.
